


Auld Lang Syne

by illumynare



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, But mostly fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, New Year's Eve, fireteam heartbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9170062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/pseuds/illumynare
Summary: On New Year's Eve, Eris waits for the rest of her housemates to get home. Or: the Fireteam Heartbeak College AU where things are still sad, but maybe it will all be okay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to all the lovely people I've met in Destiny fandom. I ♥ you guys.

Eris sometimes wondered if Toland had an actual family—as in, a father and mother, and the potential for siblings—or if he only possessed the vaguely-defined, never-named aunts who were forever gifting him things.

Like a pair of pure-bred Siamese cats.

Ir Yût climbed halfway up into Eris's lap, meowing piteously, while Ir Anûk yowled from the doorway. With a sigh, Eris abandoned her dictionary and her copy of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_.

She wasn't going to get any more work done tonight, anyway.

Feeding the cats only took a few minutes—Eris neglected, as she always did, to pre-heat the wet food the way that Toland demanded. If he wanted "his" cats fed to his specifications, then he could come out of his room and handle it himself.

Ir Yût and Ir Anûk didn't seem to mind. They scarfed the food in minutes, and then Ir Yût leapt up on the kitchen table and began washing her face, while Ir Anûk threw herself down on the floor, stomach exposed and paws kneading the air in a position that Eris knew was a trap.

The sky was black outside, stars glimmering through the barren branches clacking against the window, driven by the wind. The clock said 7:35. The others would be home soon.

Hopefully. Three years they'd been renting this ramshackle pseudo-Victorian house together—two years of college, one year of grad school—and none of them had ever come back from Christmas vacation before January 1. But this year, for one reason or another, everybody was getting back a little early anyway, and Eris had suggested that they all spend New Year's Eve together, because—

Well, she'd said _because it would be fun_ , but she'd been thinking about how little the six of them had seen each other for the past year, despite living in the same house.

She'd known that Eriana was reason they had all become friends. But she hadn't realized how much she was still the one holding them together.

Not until the accident.

Ir Anûk chirped mournfully from her spot on the floor, twisting to display another angle of her thighs.

"Only Toland is going to fall for that," said Eris, and went to make herself hot chocolate.

She heated it up on the stove, with a whisk: a process she'd learned from Wei Ning, back when they were all freshmen. They'd made Thanksgiving dinner together in the dorm lounge, and they hadn't actually had a whisk. A fork had been fine for making hot chocolate, but then Wei Ning had declared she was making whipped cream. _You can't do that with a fork,_ Eris had said, and Wei Ning had grinned like a spotlight and declared, _Watch me,_ and whipped the cream with a fork for the next 38 minutes.

Eris blinked back tears. Ten months later, the grief was still raw sometimes.

Toland wandered downstairs as she was pouring the hot chocolate into a mug. He grunted when she offered him some, instead grabbing the battered green thermos of the hyper-caffeinated sludge he called coffee.

"Someday you'll stop your heart with that," said Eris, settling into a chair at the kitchen table. Ir Yût sniffed at her ear, trilling softly, then climbed daintily onto her shoulders.

"A glorious death," Toland proclaimed, slurping his coffee. "A translation into a new existence."

Eris grinned into her mug. "New existence? You wouldn't even try the stir-fry at the cafeteria."

He was a little more willing to experiment with new foods now, but he'd spent most of freshman year subsisting on fish sticks, honey-mustard chicken strips, and jello.

Toland huffed, then bent over to scratch Ir Anûk's belly. Predictably, she suffered the affection for three seconds and then locked onto his hand with claws and teeth. Instead of prying his hand free like any normal person, Toland kept tickling at her ribs while Ir Anûk sank her teeth into his knuckles.

"Did you heat her food?" he demanded.

"No," said Eris. Ir Yût purred in her ear. "Are you going to need band-aids?"

"That's why she's angry," said Toland. "You don't understand how to handle cats."

He lifted up Ir Anûk by the ribs, her legs dangling. She yowled and clawed her way up onto Toland's shoulder—drawing blood on the way—then leapt for the top of the bookshelf.

Eris tried not to laugh, but her shoulders still shook, and Ir Yût jumped off with a thump. She meowed reproachfully over her shoulder, then went to join Ir Anûk.

Toland, still bleeding, also glowered at Eris. She fetched him band-aids and Neosporin and a kiss on the cheek; there was something inconveniently charming about him when he had been thwarted.

He grumbled about how she was disturbing the delicate psychological balance of his cats, but when he was bandaged up, he was happy enough to continue kissing. There was something quite convenient about the way he was willing to be distracted.

"Any more cocoa?" Sai asked quietly from behind them.

Eris jumped back. "You—" She looked at the front door, which couldn't be closed without loudly slamming it.

"Came in the back," said Sai. She seated herself on top of the kitchen table and started stripping off her boots and jacket. In the three years Eris had known her, she'd never sat on a chair if she could help it. "Cold out there."

"I'll make you some," said Eris, and went to the stove.

Sai liked her hot chocolate cut half-and-half with vodka, with a giant pile of whipped cream and sprinkles on top. While Eris cooked it up, Sai leaned back on her hands, swinging her legs, and didn't say a word. Toland tucked himself into the corner, clutching his thermos of coffee, and was also silent. Outside, the wind banged the branches against the windows again.

The only ones who spoke were Ir Yût and Ir Anûk, winding themselves around Eris's ankles. She took it as a personal triumph that she delivered Sai's mug of hot chocolate without spilling. Then she picked up Ir Anûk and slung her over a shoulder; Ir Anûk purred, and washed her earlobe with a warm sandpaper tongue.

"Nice," said Sai, sipping at her hot chocolate, and they all remained silent in the kitchen as Toland drifted to Eris's side and gingerly rubbed at Ir Anûk's ears. She made a noice that was half-meow, half trill, but kept on steadily washing Eris's jawbone.

Omar and Vell arrived together, having carpooled from the airport; they came in the front door arguing some point about Vanguard University's latest rugby match. Vell was now an actual coach while Omar hadn't played since the last unofficial pre-law vs. biology match, but that didn't stop them from having equally passionate opinions.

Eris handed Ir Anûk to Toland (the match lasted two minutes, perhaps a new record) and went to make more hot chocolate. Omar liked his with so much chocolate melted into it that a spoon could almost stand up in it; Vell liked his thinner, but he also wanted it cut with as much rum as Sai liked vodka, so Eris could cook up their mugs in the same pot.

Soon they were all settled. Sai, still sitting atop the table, had gotten out her knitting, and her needles glittered and clacked as she added to the lacy, red-and-black scarf. Vell announced he was hungry, and started chopping up vegetables and beef for a stir-fry. Toland monologued to Omar about Sanskrit philology while Omar waved his hands and monologued back with an incomprehensible story about law school.

Eris leaned against the wall, a lukewarm cup of cocoa in her hands, and felt the same warm satisfaction as if there were a cat wrapped around her shoulders and purring.

One thought still swirled coldly in the back of her mind: that Eriana was still not home. That there might be another patch of ice on the road, another car spinning out of control. Or that there might be another text, _sorry can't make it,_ like there had been so many times in the past year.

Eriana had always been the one who reached out, warm and determined. She was the one who spoke to a shy, friendless Eris while they were on the art museum trip during orientation week. Who dragged Toland out of the language lab to eat lunch with them, and made Omar stop drive-by snarking their table to actually sit down with them. Who made Sai laugh out loud for the first time that anyone had ever seen, and who suddenly acquired Vell following her to movie nights like a duckling.

Who had not been the same since Wei Ning died.

None of them had been. None of them had known how much they depended on Wei Ning—once their RA, then their friend—until she was gone.

Now there was laughter in the kitchen again, Vell had set his pan on fire again, Sai was laughing again . . . but Eriana wasn't home yet.

Ir Yût pressed a cold nose to Eris's hand. She scratched the cat's cheek absent-mindedly, and listened beyond the insistent meowing, beyond the clatter and laughter of her friends, and the howl of the wind outside.

She _listened_.

And then she heard the rattle of the key in the lock.

In a moment she was out of the kitchen, through the living room, at the front door. Heartbeat fluttering in her throat, hands fumbling at the door-knob. Then she pulled the door open.

Eriana stood on the doorstep. Her pale hair—once always impeccably styled—was a mess under her knit cap, and her eyes were tired.

But she was _there._

"Hey," she said. "Sorry I'm late."

And Eris, with rare impulsiveness, reeled her in for a wordless hug. Eriana was stiff in her arms at first, but then slowly relaxed. Slowly cupped her hands over Eris's shoulder blades, and let her chin rest in the crook of Eris's neck.

Slow, Eris began to think, _Maybe we will be okay._

The wind gusted again. She shivered, and pulled out of the hug.

"Come on," she said, grabbing Eriana by the wrist. "I can make you hot chocolate. Everyone's waiting for you."


End file.
